iTheater: Mac Media Center, now obsolete, was an open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 media center application for Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

.

Active development and support of iTheater is no longer underway in lieu of other media application availability.

Before the release of Apple's own Front Row

Front Row

Front Row is a media center software for Apple's Macintosh computers and Apple TV for navigating and viewing video, photos, podcasts, and music from a computer, optical disc, or the Internet through a 10-foot user interface . The software relies on iTunes and iPhoto and is controlled by an Apple...

 and the mass adoption of online video streaming services such as Hulu

Hulu

Hulu is a website and over-the-top subscription service offering ad-supported on-demand streaming video of TV shows, movies, webisodes and other new media, trailers, clips, and behind-the-scenes footage from NBC, Fox, ABC, and Obstacle on October 20th 2011 Nickelodeon and CBS and many other...

 and Netflix

Netflix

Netflix, Inc., is an American provider of on-demand internet streaming media in the United States, Canada, and Latin America and flat rate DVD-by-mail in the United States. The company was established in 1997 and is headquartered in Los Gatos, California...

, iTheater was one of the first pieces of third-party software to act as a conduit between users and the media on Mac OS X.

Project History

With the release of the Mac mini

Mac Mini

The Mac Mini is a small form factor desktop computer manufactured by Apple Inc. Like earlier mini-ITX PC designs, it is uncommonly small for a desktop computer: 7.7 inches square and 1.4 inches tall. It weighs 2.7 pounds...

 at MacWorld

Macworld

Macworld is a web site and monthly computer magazine dedicated to Apple Macintosh products. It is published by Mac Publishing, which is headquartered in San Francisco, California...

 SF 2005, it became possible to keep a small computer, with a lot of power, in the living room to share the multimedia content created by Apple's "Digital Hub". iTheater is but one of a few non-Apple Macintosh media center applications over the years, and like most others has an interface that is very similar to Apple's own Front Row. The application was designed to discover and present an array of multimedia content in a user-friendly way.

Development

iTheater was developed and released under the GNU General Public License

GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....

. As of May 2009, the iTheater website redirects to their SourceForge repository. Active development and support is no longer underway in lieu of other media application availability.

Milestone Releases

|-
! colspan="3" | iTheater Public Releases
|-
! Release Date
! Version
! Features
|-
| 2006-01-31
| iTheater 0.1
| First public release
|-
| 2006-02-19
| iTheater 0.1.1
| Bug fix release
|-
| 2006-06-10
| iTheater 0.1.2a
| New UI, New Playback engine, Numbered Menu System added to Music module
|-
| 2006-08-25
| iTheater 0.1.2
| Apple Remote support, Letter Skipping
|-
| 2007-02-03
| iTheater 0.1.3
| Preference Pane

Preference Pane

A Preference Pane is a special dynamically loaded plugin in Mac OS X. Introduced in Mac OS X v10.0, the purpose of a Preference Pane is to allow the user to set preferences for a specific application or the system by means of a graphical user interface. Preference Panes are the OS X replacement to...

, Wii Remote

Wii Remote

The , also known as the Wiimote, is the primary controller for Nintendo's Wii console. A main feature of the Wii Remote is its motion sensing capability, which allows the user to interact with and manipulate items on screen via gesture recognition and pointing through the use of accelerometer and...

 support, Playlist Support
|-
| 2007-04-15
| iTheater 0.1.4
| Expanded preferences, bug fixes, major rearchitecting of software to accommodate future enhancements
|-
| 2007-07-14
| iTheater 0.2.0
| Update system and support for multiple monitors included
|->

See also

• Apple TV
• Boxee
  BOXEE
  Boxee is a cross-platform freeware HTPC software application with a 10-foot user interface and social networking features designed for the living-room TV...
  
  
• Centerstage
  Centerstage
  CenterStage, now obsolete, was a media center software application with a 10-foot user interface design for the living-room TV that allows digital content stored on an Apple Macintosh computer running Mac OS X to be played on a standard television set....
  
   (no longer being developed)
• SageTV
  SageTV
  SageTV Media Center was a proprietary, commercial DVR and HTPC software for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. It requires that the host computer have a hardware based TV tuner card. The SageTV software has an integrated Electronic Programming Guide that is updated via the Internet...
  
  
• Plex
  Plexapp
  Plex is a partially open-source freeware media player for Intel-based Apple Macintosh computers. It has a 10-foot user interface design for the living-room TV...
  
  
• XBMC Media Center

External links

• itheaterproject.com iTheater official website
• http://sourceforge.net/projects/itheater/ iTheater SourceForce Project Page with source code